Featuring TheRunZone?s resident coach Tinman. All participants are welcome to post and reply to topics in this section whether you?re looking for advice, or sharing your own coaching experience.

Hello, Tinman and others,First off, I can't thank you enough Tinman for sharing your philosophy with the community and giving the opportunity to allow everyone to learn. Ever since I found out about this site, I have been reading articles daily and gathering information. I'm actually doing more reading on this site than my Organic textbook (I'm currently majoring in Biology) haha! I applied your philosophy to my training mid-December. I ran a 5k race on 12/16/17 with a time of 17:51 (My pr is 16:46 from high school but I took a year off and started training again in August 2017 for my college cross country team). Since the race, that is when I applied Tinmans philosophy. One week consisted of 5-6 CV intervals with 200m jogs + 4x200m w/200m jog at mile pace, Tinman Tempo over hills or Tinman Tempo + reps of hills sprints + quick striders, and a long run over hills. Following week, I would do CV intervals plus 200s, stamina intervals so I did mile repeats at Tempo pace w/ a minute rest plus striders, and a long run that consisted the last 4 miles or so down to tempo effort over rolling hills. I slowed down my easy runs and I have a lot of energy when it comes to my workouts and I don't feel beat up like used too. I'm currently at 62-66 mpw. My goal race is in the middle of April. I did a 3k time trial about two weeks ago and I pr'd which wasn't my intention at all! I ran 9:31 so the avg is 3:10 per k and my pr was a 9:38 from high school. I felt good and went through the first 1k in 3:09 and rolled right through without a kick. I used tinmans calculator to get my pace so of course, my CV pace is faster. I was doing the intervals at 3:40-3:43 before the trial and each week I made the reps 1-2 seconds faster. I did CV ks at 3:27 pace earlier this week and I felt just as good as when I did it at 3:40 and I hit every rep on time.

I have a race coming up on February 4, a 5k race I do every year since high school. There is usually good competition and this is the race where I hold my Pr. I don't think running another time trial would be a good idea since the race would act as a VO2 workout. I was planning to do this weeks schedule as I normally did but the week of the race (which is on a Sunday) is where I'm stuck at. I read a thread on this site that a good simulator would be 1.5 mile at LT then a set of hill reps and back to another 1.5 mile LT 2-3 days before the race. Should I do this or a Tinman Tempo + hills + quick striders?

I would appreciate it if anyone gave me feedback, negative or positive, doesn't matter. I am still trying to learn and adapt Tinmans philosophy into my training so anything would be great. I hope to hear from you Tinman, others are more than welcome as well! Thank you!